


A Miracle Will Come To Take You Home

by CaptainLeBubbles



Series: A Point Called Z In the Complex Plane [4]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 02:16:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14392143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLeBubbles/pseuds/CaptainLeBubbles
Summary: The aftermath of the portal incident.





	A Miracle Will Come To Take You Home

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this like. A month ago.
> 
> Don't read if you haven't read up to chapter 11 of the main fic.

-/-

Stan had survived for twenty years in the multiverse with nothing but his wits and a pair of knuckle dusters- well, and whatever other tools he’d picked up along the way, but he’d started with just that- and a leather bound red journal. The journal hadn’t been much of a tool, honestly, though he’d occasionally used it as a melee weapon. He’d also used a couple of the blank pages at the end as kindling for a fire, but he wouldn’t use the rest. Even just using those blank pages had left him roiling in a pit of guilt.

But it was the journal that allowed him to keep his sanity. The journal was written in his brother’s handwriting and had his brother’s drawings, and Stan had read through it so many times he had every page burned into his brain. It was the only way, sometimes, that he could remember why he was pushing forward, what he was still living for.

He had to get the journal back to Ford.

Somehow.

He’d tried being angry, at first. Taking that bitter resentment and the burning rage that he’d been feeling when they were fighting and stoking it into a fire that blazed bright and white and hot inside of him. It was Ford’s fault he was here, Ford’s fault he’d been homeless before, Ford’s fault he’d been kicked out- it was all Ford’s fault, because Ford only cared about himself and hadn’t wanted his dumb, sweaty twin riding his coattails even though all Stan had really wanted was for his brother to want him around.

But like all fires, the rage eventually died out, leaving behind it an aching wound and a hollowness that was far more painful than any physical wound he’d sustained in the past three decades- a list that was extensive, and he had the marks to prove it.

He didn’t care about blame or fault or who had ruined whose life. He just wanted to go home.

He wanted his brother back.

He never gave up hope. Twenty years, and he’d known he’d find his way back eventually. He had to, he had to give Ford his journal back.

(In his mind’s eye, he saw Ford’s face, chalk-white, shouting that he was sorry, to hold on, that he would help him- that he would find him- that he would bring him back. He’s clung to that for awhile, but let it go eventually. He doubted Ford would want to see him again after everything that had been said, and then he’d doubted that it would take that long. And then he’d remembered how dangerous Ford said it was, and told himself that it was for the universe’s safety that he had to find his own way home, and that Ford hadn’t just abandoned him.)

The day the portal reopened, Stan was thinking about shrimp. It was such an odd thing to think of; he wasn’t exactly a big shrimp-eater, but it’d been years since he’d had anything even remotely resembling shrimp, and now he was craving it. And then a portal had opened up next to him, and he’d stared at it for a long time.

He’d gone through lots of portals over the years, many of them leading to entire new dimensions, and he had a principal of going through them if possible because one of them might take him home. But something about this one was different, and then he realized that it was _familiar_. It was a glowing blue spinning disc of light, just like the one that had sucked him in to begin with. And he could hear, faintly, voices on the other side. Nothing coherent, but voices.

He thought one of them might be Ford’s.

He took his time. Gathered up his belongings, such that they were, and put his coat back on and shouldered his pack and holstered his weapons and draped his cloak over everything, and then tucked the journal into the front inside pocket so he could give it back to Ford as soon as he saw him, snapped his goggles over his eyes, and then, and only then, did he step through it.

There was shouting going on on the other side, but as he stepped though, he heard an unfamiliar voice say, very softly, “Ford. You did it.”

And then, the voice he’d been longing to hear again for twenty years, twenty long years, said, even softer, kind of choked up, “Stanley…”

He wanted to cry. After everything, everything he’d done and everything he’d said, after all of that, and despite the danger… Ford had brought him home anyway.

And then Ford hugged him, held him like he had no intention of ever letting go, and Stan was glad he was wearing goggles and then he regretted them because they were filling up but who cared, he had his brother again, his brother had saved him brought him back wanted him saved him loved him was hugging him was crying loved him, loved him again, and it was all he’d ever wanted, and in a minute he’d have to find out what the hell was going on but right now his brother loved him and that was all that mattered.

-/-

**Author's Note:**

> And then I drew [this](https://drawsbygrifalinas.tumblr.com/post/173175347297/a-portal-stan) to go with it.
> 
> Want to see more of this? Check me out on Tumblr @grifalinas, or my art blog @drawsbygrifalinas.


End file.
